Hardware-In-the-Loop for Connected Automated Vehicles Testing in Real Traffic
This work addresses the need for repeatable and realistic testing of CAVs, which is crucial for automotive engineers and researchers, though it appears incremental as it combines existing simulation tools.
The authors tackled the problem of testing Connected Automated Vehicles (CAVs) in dynamic, real-world scenarios by developing a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation setup that integrates multiple tools for perception, traffic, and vehicle dynamics, and demonstrated it by testing a Model Predictive Control approach for maximizing energy efficiency in urban environments.
We present a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation setup for repeatable testing of Connected Automated Vehicles (CAVs) in dynamic, real-world scenarios. Our goal is to test control and planning algorithms and their distributed implementation on the vehicle hardware and, possibly, in the cloud. The HIL setup combines PreScan for perception sensors, road topography, and signalized intersections; Vissim for traffic micro-simulation; ETAS DESK-LABCAR/a dynamometer for vehicle and powertrain dynamics; and on-board electronic control units for CAV real time control. Models of traffic and signalized intersections are driven by real-world measurements. To demonstrate this HIL simulation setup, we test a Model Predictive Control approach for maximizing energy efficiency of CAVs in urban environments.